I Just Felt Sick
by Jesus.Lives
Summary: The aftermath of Lake Laogai. LONGERBEE. THE DATE IS UP! THE DATE HAS ENDED!
1. I Just Felt Sick

**I have SEEN the episode! I wrote this beforehand... but it needs little revision. Basically just that I found out that the so called "Jetterbee" shipping in the ep was a dirty lie!!!**

**I've read opinions that Longshot's cocked bow at the door meant something - like he was waiting for guards...**

**But he was really just giving Smellerbee a last moment with Jet.**

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_LONGSHOT'S P.O.V_

"Jet" her tear stained eyes wept, as I'd finally convinced her to leave him and cleave to me instead.

I would have reminded her that I wasn't Jet. But I was too shaken up myself.

The air was cool in Lake Laogai.

And I just felt sick.

It had taken her the longest time, to leave the dead and instead cling to the living.

I didn't know how I would manuver my bow to protect us, when she was grabbing me so tight.

Possibly still thinking my body was his. Or at least the only salvage left from the scene.

My voice found it's way to the surface for the second time "We have to get out of here..."

I was tempted to say her name, but I didn't know how it would sound, after so long.

I thought I would never talk again. I felt sicker speaking right then... but desperate times called for desperate measures.

The hardest thing was leaving the one you love. We couldn't do that to him. But we had to.

I had to be strong... when she couldn't.

The Avatar had left. Aang... and his friends. Smellerbee was not about to shake herself back to reality.

And I just felt sick.


	2. I Still Felt Sick

**Part of the process of pain is moving on... I've put my thoughts up on Lake Laogai in the next chapter, cause I could.**

**Longshot's voice was just awesome. So him! Ahhhh... (swoons).**

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I don't know why I did what I did. I don't know why I opened my mouth.

Smellerbee wanted to go back. Back to the others. Back to the family and if they were still around...

she would find them.

I was painfully worried that she would leave in the middle of the night and never come back. She still slunk around like she didn't believe he was gone.

I knew it hurt. She must have known that it hurt me too.

I didn't want to ever talk again. My words had been very few since we'd gotten back...

Safely. Too bad the same thing didn't happen for him.

It's was more than too bad.

I wish I could just open up again and say what I needed to say to get her to stay.

Without Jet, I had her. Without her...

I wept.

She heard my wimpering. Finally letting go.

"I'm sorry" I said at last. Feeling sick to hear the sound of my own voice... still.

She held my eyes with hers, before gripping my arm in something that was too painful to be a hug. "So am I..." She said.

We both wore the burden of blame. We both wore the burden of pain.

I hoped with all I had... that the next words that could come out of my throat would be 'I love you' but they choked right up in my insides.

She knew though. "I'm not going to leave..." she started and gripped me tighter. "Without you."

Tears continued to run. It hadn't passed. I still felt sick.

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**I've also written a little on them going back. Think they'd really stick around Ba Sing Se after... well... that?**

**They'd be insane to stay somewhere like that, after it killed their leader.**

**Back to the treehouses for our heroes. At least we may see Pipsqueak, Sneers and the Duke again!**


	3. Spoilers & Speculations

**I've finished watching it! **

**My general comments. Feel free to comment yourself.**

I believe that Longshot guarded the door for Smellerbee's sake. Let her have her peace with him... before the end. Sob!

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That hug was NOT a Jetterbee shipping moment! Com'on! She spent the whole afternoon in City Walls and Secrets going off with Longshot and you're going to tell me the embrace of a shocked friend... neigh family member... means she's in love with him?

Bah! I don't buy it! She and Longshot still deserve each other... Ahhhhh...

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Smellerbee is taller than Katara and I think she's at LEAST the same age. She looks older now that her hair's grown a bit too. She might even be Sokka's age like Longshot is.

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Zuko's hair grew really fast! This episode he looks like one of the beatles... um... I don't know what era. Meh. Anyway... Much better than that ugly fugly ponytail. Blech!

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How come Aang didn't have more of a response when Sokka suggested Katara kissing Jet? Like airbending the boy out of the building? Com'on. He's just going to keep standing back... grrr...

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The Iroh + Zuko talk exactly what we'll be expecting from Zuko's soul searching in the next episode... What is his destiny? Hm? Not to join the gaang, is it? ;)

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Iroh rocks. Maybe he doesn't have to die for Zuko to finally get it after all.

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If Jet was brainwashed, and his memories came back at the end... WHY... oh WHY did he remember Katara and plead "he'd changed" if he didn't know what he was before? Plot issue?

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Katara has really shown she's not a forgiving person if a boy hurts her. If Zutara's going to happen, Zuko better not mess it up... or else. (Aangy would never mess it up, he knows what's good for him).

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All in all - excellent episode. My Longerbee dreams are not in the SLIGHTEST tainted. (Lairs! Those that made me doubt), a tiny Kataang moment (yeah, one sided) and Zuko becoming HEAPS more likeable.

Not to mention the group hug at the end... AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW...

I can dream easy tonight that my favorite ships can still sail. Well, ok... I don't care about any of them but Longerbee... so meh.


	4. Jet's Last Words

**Back to... Jet's last words... Get your tissues. Ah. Jet! Sob!**

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_"Katara. __I'll be fine__."_

_"He's lying."_

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Smellerbee still hunched over him, sobs overthrowing her body. Longshot refused to look. His eyes trained on the door until Jet spoke again.

"If you see the others..." he was trying to put on a brave face. For his family. For his friends. His freedom fighter's. "Don't tell them about me... like this. Tell them that I went... like a hero."

Smellerbee tried to struggle a nod, but it wasn't successful because her body was still in a fit of tremors. Longshot nodded for her, one eye still trained on the door.

He wasn't the person the Dai Li had made him become. And it was a secret Longshot and Smellerbee were sure they would take to their graves as well.


	5. Trapped in Laogai

**What if... they didn't get out? **

**Nobody wants Longshot and Smellerbee to share Jet's fate... but here we go:**

**Alternative Ending #2.**

**------------------------------------**

They went down pretty easily. Almost willingly.

Longshot shot a few men down, mostly to protect Smellerbee from any harm. But in the end, their will to fight had been tainted. Their will to fight had been lost.

It was as if there was nothing for them anymore.

They'd lost what they were fighting for.

Smellerbee felt a sense of calm washing over her as the flame went round and round. Her tears had since dried to her skin, making it clammy with the damp conditions of the underwater prison.

She'd forgotten about Jet, lying still on the cold floor. She'd forgotten the look in Longshot's eyes as they took them apart from each other.

Mesmorized.

There is no war...


	6. Never to Bee

**This is some dark shipping. There's nothing to stop them from getting together but themselves...**

**What did happen during that 2 week interval where Smellerbee and Longshot were without Jet anyway:D**

**Longshot X Smellerbee**

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Hiding guilt wasn't easy. Back when Jet was taken by the Dai Li and they didn't go after him, Smellerbee and Longshot considered it their fault, not only that their warnings weren't strong enough, but also that they seemed to betray their memory of him over the next two weeks.

Sure, they spoke of him. Often. But sometimes, they felt, it was good to go their own way for a change.

Three months after he was gone, Smellerbee was still overcompensating. A way to preserve her memory of him, she wouldn't allow herself to move on.

Longshot grew sick with worry for her... and sometimes, when they'd come close together, he found her pulling away all the more.

"We can't Longshot" she said, undeniable guilt written all over her face, as she turned her face away from his advances.

For some reason, because he was gone they had to die with him. Longshot wondered if this would be his last try. To get things back to the way they were in that two week absence of Jet - when he was just in prison... not...

Longshot shook his head sadly. It was useless. Smellerbee thought that any intimate action with Longshot was a betrayal of their leader, but Longshot knew that Jet would want them to be happy.

When Smellerbee was ready to aknowledge that, he wondered if he'd still be there.


	7. Treetops

**This is a random one, sent when they go back. I've got a few prequel drabbles to this. But I'll put them up later.**

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Gentle whisps of wind floated by the trees.

Longshot and Smellerbee didn't expect a heroes welcome when they got back. They were unsure anyone would be there at all.

They sat on a floor board perched on top of the trees, listening to the sounds of silence that were all around them.

Smellerbee clamped a small hand around Longshot's as they waited.

"Do you think anyone's coming?" She asked, her voice still weak and husky. Her body shivering with the cold.

He untied his shawl from around his neck and placed it around her, shrugging as a response.

"Don't you want to talk?" She said again, her eyes grazed over his. As if he was someone that she thought she knew, but wasn't quite sure about anymore.

He caught her in a glare that said - _'What's there to talk about?'_

Smellerbee just looked out into the distance, but not really looking at anything in particular. Just the small rays of light, that made her feel like everything was hopeless. "Why him?" She asked to no one.

Longshot knew it was rhetorical, and closed his eyes. Listening to their breathing.

Smellerbee felt worn, in every part of her. She felt used, like she did when Jet didn't recognize her on the street.

_Didn't recognize them._ She corrected herself.

Most of all, she felt tired from the journey. They could have tried to fit in, in Ba Sing Se... but it just wasn't possible anymore. Not after what happened. Not after losing their leader.

"What do we do now?" Smellerbee asked.

He looked at her, still trembling and pulled her up against him. "We wait." he said, their fingers interlocking as they searched over the moving branches for signs of life.


	8. Another Ferry Trip

**MH Escapee: **Ummm... neglecting life. Mad shippingness. I've got some weird kinda Longerbee bug?

I'm looking for an explaination myself. Let me know if you can diagnose the reason for my frequent updates...

**Set before the last drabble. I'm going successively backwards here.**

_I wrote this before I saw the episode. There's a hint of a Jetterbee moment in there, that Smellerbee realizes it mattered all along what Jet thought of her._

_I love writing Longshot talking. Ahhhh... Can just imagine it._

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The trip from Ba Sing Se had been a long one. Much longer than the trip there, in retrospect. Also much quieter.

Smellerbee held Jet's passport her hand. Flipping it around until her arm got tired. Holding onto what she felt was the last piece of him she had left.

Longshot put a tired hand on her arm to stop the movement. It was supposed to be comforting but he wondered if it was though.

He wondered if they weren't talking because they couldn't... or didn't want to.

She didn't seem to even care about protecting herself anymore. He'd gripped his bow like it was his oldest friend..._ and now_... he thought dismally... _it was._

He slumped against the ferry, after the train ride.

Watched wistfully the ripples gliding over the mass of water, and how the little ripples, all came from one event. How one event would change them forever.

There is no war in Ba Sing Se.

They could no longer kid themselves that change was what they could have. Peace, was what they could have. They didn't deserve change. They didn't deserve peace. And really, they thought it was no longer possible. All hopes dashed. That's how it went, didn't it?

Then, just when he thought he was alone. The silence was broken.

"Longshot..." came a husky voice behind him.

He spun around. Tired and weary, but still ready to be whatever kind of friend he could be.

"You lied to me right?" She said. Her small frame, now somewhat timid. "You told me last time, well... I guessed...that if I'm confident with who I am, it doesn't matter what other people think. But it mattered what Jet thought... what you thought..."

He clasped her in his arms again; suprised that she remembered from the last time on this same ferry.

"I still think the same" Longshot said, after drawing a breath.

She played with the corner of his shawl, trying to forget herself. "And Jet?" She asked finally.

Neither one of them spoke another word. Their body language echoed each other's as they sunk closer in together and watched the sun go down over a disturbed body of water.


	9. Aftermath in Ba Sing Se I

_This is kinda a prequel to what I wrote on the ferry. I want to write more about how they get out of Ba Sing Se._

_I can't imagine they were making much money before they ran into Jet again... but now a generous woman has offered to help._

**This goes onto what I'm writing as a Longerbee date. It'll come if the inspiration hits.**

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"I don't say this very often" said the woman as they were walking down the alley way of a Ba Sing Se strip. "But you two are one of the cutest couples I've seen come along here. So... raggedy and..." she was searching for the right word.

Smellerbee would have grinned if she was up to grinning. She wasn't though, and instead she shared a look with Longshot that said it all:  
_'Couple? Us? You're joking right?'_

"We lost our leader" Longshot said, his voice holding a steady pace, "we need to get enough money to go back and see our home again."

"And leave Ba Sing Se?" The plump woman chuckled, "now why would anybody want to do a thing like that?"

Smellerbee was getting annoyed. She was sick of this city and just wanted to leave right away. She held her tongue in case she said something she might regret. Who knew? Maybe Longshot was rubbing off on her.

"Alright. You missy" the woman addressed Smellerbee "will work for me and the girls". She pointed at Longshot "and my husband should find something to do with you. I always like to help out young couples who want to get back on their feet."

Smellerbee stifled her anger. _'Look missy. We're not a couple...'_ she said in her mind. Longshot gave her a sympathetic look that said it all.

_'How are you holding up?'_

She shot him one back: _'I don't want to talk about it.'_

Longshot's heart sunk. The longer she would keep repressing things, the longer it would take to move on. To be strong. To be all the things she needed to be right now.

He didn't have to promise Jet to take care of her, because it was given that he would do it anyway. He just wished that she'd let him in.


	10. Aftermath in Ba Sing Se II

_Assuming that Longshot will be sleeping with the boys and Smellerbee with the girls, when they stay with this kind elder woman and family..._

_**PM Hall** - Hey. Don't try and break my Longerbee denial. I'm so in denial at them not already being canon, I'm using whatever lame hints I can get from Lake Laogai to officialize their status. (waaaahhh!)_

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It was the first time in a while they were placed into seperate rooms. Longshot's eyes were wide open in the dark. Somehow in the midst of it all, sleep wouldn't come.  
Perhaps when this was all over with it would be different.

He saw the door open and as she crept in, in the middle of the night. Lay beside him and wept on him. In the crook between his shoulder and his neck, she huddled up. As if she had every right to be there.

She cried silent tears until there lay patterns on his clothing and she lifted herself, her lips close to his ear whispered "G'night Longshot".

With that she was gone as quickly as she came. He stroked the air where she was only moments ago.

'Goodnight Smellerbee' he repeated in his mind, until sleep finally overcame him.


	11. Date

**The DATE - Part One.**

**Enjoy and review!**

"You two have been working straight for the last week. You must take that girl of yours out for some alone time!"

Longshot's brow creased. It would have been so much easier just to tell the truth.

The woman, Beatrice Zhou - who they refered to as Lady Zhou - but tried to prompt them into just calling her Bea, made sure Smellerbee was ready.

Smellerbee tried her best to decline. But Bea literally forced one of her daughters old dresses on her - which slunk at her lack of body weight, and Smellerbee did all she could to keep her gloves, covered boots and bandanna on, with a strapped dress that fell just below her knees.

They didn't want to be in Ba Sing Se any longer. They had things to do, places to go. A chance of finding home which was anywhere where the Dai Li wasn't.

Bea had set up the place. Set up everything. Longshot felt like he was on an arranged date, but even worse, he felt awful for Smellerbee who just wanted to be left alone.

Smellerbee rubbed at her upper arm with one gloved hand and looked down to the plain black dress she was wearing that hung off her skinny body.

"What would Jet say if he saw this?" She asked Longshot, her face flushed at the idea and feeling incredibly out of place in this new outfit.

He looked her up and down and thought about things from his leader's perspective. Smellerbee would have thought he'd laugh. But Longshot knew he wouldn't. He shook his head, mainly at her thoughts that she never had to say aloud.

"Alright." She said, her hands up in a sign of a truce "you don't have to say it. I didn't want to wear this anyway. That woman..." she grit her teeth "forced it on me."

Longshot gave her another once over. Long limbs, bushy hair, wonderful eyes that read him like a book, an upturned nose, small breasts hidden by the size of the clothing which barely kept up on her small, rounded shoulders. She always stood hunched, but he liked that about her... her eyes always scanning the scene around her. It wasn't important the way she looked, but what she could see to size up a situation and be ready for an attack.

She looked... different. He'd never noticed how her legs curved before, or how fragile she really was behind all that armor.

What would Jet have said?

Longshot unfastened his hat and held it to his chest. "Jet would have said that you look beautiful" he said stoically, as if the comment meant nothing at all to him.

Her eyes welled with tears that were frequently coming ever since they left Jet back in Lake Laogai, when it had seemed that they tried everything. "I'm sure he would have laughed..." she said, fighting it off. "You know, at the thought of both of us... goin' out together."

This time his look was purposeful.

She caved again. "Alright. Let's do this. But I'm not letting you pay for dinner."

He nodded and she stood by his side. The exact thing which got them into this complication to begin with.


	12. Dusk Stroll

_**Part two of their date...** they're out about the city streets. I wrote this two times because I lost the original. The second copy ended up sucking more than the first, but here it is._

_I got the idea from a kung fu tv show. Ah, the romance!!! Kung fu style romance and Longerbee fits pretty well._

_**Blind Bandit:** Can we really share him? As long as you keep saying the Freedom Fighter boys are cooler than the water tribe (cause Sokka's pretty persistant on that water tribe sex appeal stuff) and you're not a Zuko fangirl! Seriously, that angsty mommy's boy has enough! Share the love... to the other Avatar boys!_

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Bustling.

They strolled down another main city street. Watching the people out and about with busy lives.

Women washing and scrubbing on corners outside of their homes that were too small to afford privacy.  
Laborers stocking carts.

A man who had accidently flipped open the hatch on one of his many coops was now chasing a fluttering, squaking bird down the alley-way, his cart full of poulty being pulled behind him at a breakneck speed.

Some children gathered around a man selling sugar cane on the street. Spitting chips of it onto the ground and some poorer ones sticking their dirty little faces on the ground after peices that still had sugary residue that glistened in the afternoon sun.

Smellerbee was hunched, as always. Now desperately trying not to let the dress she was wearing cling to her, prefering it hung off her body, so that no one could really see what it was hiding.

Ignorance was bliss. Longshot pondered. He remembered being that way himself, before the fire nation had his town burnt to a crisp. You never think it will happen to you. There are always so many stories, but you always associate them with a far away time or place - never your own backyard.

The Dai Li was doing it's job.

Both of them felt sickened to be there were the government was able, for the price of denial, to lead to Jet's death. It was peaceful... but Jet always taught them that denial wasn't a healthy thing.

The irony being that he lived in denial in himself, thinking singlehandedly sometimes that he could save the world from the fire nation. That nobody could ever have peace.

But right now, in the afternoon sun. This was what they wanted, right? When they came to Ba Sing Se? It wasn't what Jet wanted, though. He lied all along.

"So, you've finally done it, Longshot. You've got me outside. So then what do you want to do?" Her voice was accusing. Like HE had arranged the whole thing.

"You must want to do something!" She protested.

Longshot got her to hold that thought and went over to grab a couple of sugar cane stalks, digging into his pocket for what little he had.

He came back and handed one over to her. She gave him a bug eyed look which said it all, before biting off the end of it. Tasting the sweetness in her mouth and spitting out the remainder that didn't have any residue left on it.

He did the same, chewing thoughtfully.

She smirked and brandished the stalk at him, in a swordfighter's pose. "On guard!" she called, waving it around in his face.

He half-heartedly whacked it out of the way with his own stalk and she kept her position, with a swift move knocking his stalk to the ground.

She smirked her second smirk in two weeks and shrugged at him under her bushy hair that was almost to her shoulders.

"You really should have let Jet teach you the advantages of blade to blade combat" she said, as she looked down at his dirty piece of sugar cane, from the dusty streets and broke hers in half to give him some.

"Sometimes I think..." she said with her mouth now full, circling a large piece in her mouth "that you're afraid of getting too close to people."

Without warning she gripped his hand that wasn't holding the sugar cane she'd just given him. Her gloved fingers slid in between his and she spat some more splinters onto the ground.

"You really shouldn't be so distant, Longshot" she said again, her voice barley above a whisper as he took it to mean so much more than just as a long range archer.


	13. Dinner Interrupted

**Dinner Interrupted.**

**Part 3 of the Date...**  
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"Y'know, Len. If that's really a girl, it's an ugly one. I don't know who I feel more sorry for - the boy she's with or the other patrons." He smirked.

They were talking really loudly.

Longshot stiffened all the way up to his jaw. Smellerbee bit back the welling in her eyes for as long as she could. She avoided Longshot's glare.

"It's alright. I'm comfortable with who I am. You don't have to be worried about me Longshot." She muttered.

It wasn't easy for her getting over this. Especially after everything she'd been through. Her bushy hair hung in her eyes where it came out at the sides and she still couldn't face him.

Longshot couldn't move. She knew how he felt about pointless insults like this, but it didn't stop her from being offended about it all the more. Even when she pretended flat out that she wasn't.

She stabbed at the fish a little too roughly with her chopsticks, cracking the plate it was under.

"Sorry. I didn't mean that." She said blushing and still refusing Longshot's eyes. That was the only way she could keep from being entirely vunerable. She was already in a dress, and for him to read what was in her eyes would just be torture. She'd already never felt so exposed before in her life.

The friend of Len's leaned back and the man they could only guess was Len dwardled over to them. "So what is it? This is Ba Sing Se. There are ladies everywhere, and a boy like you has his fresh pick... You're blind right?"

Longshot stood up. He looked at the man hard and then turned his back again.

"Ohhh... I've got it. Mute as a dumb ostrich-horse this one. Guess if you're not as good with the lines as me or Len here, that you'd have to settle for the cities slim pickings..."

Smellerbee stood up now, angry and frustrated, her eyes on the verge of brimming over with fresh tears. "He just doesn't want to waste his breath on scum like you!" She yelled in fury.

Len and his friend got a smile on their faces. "Well, we have ways of making him talk... Don't we?"

Smellerbee pulled out her knife. "And we have ways of getting you to leave us alone."

"You threatening us little girl?" The smile didn't fade but something in Len's jawbone tensed.

"I'm just saying to leave me an' Longshot alone, alright?"

His eyebrow cocked. "Longshot?"

Longshot bowed his head.

"Well what would ya have it. Longshot here wants to have time alone with his bodyguard. So are you paying her for her security services, or is she paying you for making the ugly wretch able to pretend she's a girl... if just for one night."

At this Smellerbee charged at Len who was standing up and wrestled him to the ground. She didn't care about her dress anymore, as it scuffed at the hem. "I. AM. A. GIRL!!!"

That was the last straw. And if Smellerbee couldn't get the Dai Li, she was going to get him. Even at the cost of being thrown in Lake Laogai like Jet.

Longshot got up and bent down to stop her arms from flailing. Len's arm reached out to her first, and Longshot grabbed it before it could make contact and wrenched it back, twisting it skillfully until the joint almost popped out of place.

He let it drop. She looked at him from a tangled mess on the floor. Sprawled out, her dress hanging off her bones. As beautiful as ever, but he didn't understand how other people couldn't see it.

Why was long, straight hair always considered more beautiful than short, bushy hair?

Len's friend got up and he made a move towards him, to which he backed off muttering something that sounded like, "stupid kids".

Longshot put his hand down to Smellerbee, pulled her up and put one arm on her back, guiding her out. One to pull out a couple of coins and throw them down on their table and then again to straighten up his hat as they left on what was supposed to be the one peaceful night they'd had in weeks.

This wasn't a helpful thing to heap on top of all their other problems. "We'll be out of here soon" Longshot said in a whisper to her. She wondered if he meant out of the eatery or out of Ba Sing Se, but knew from the comforting tones he meant the latter.

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_Whew. So there goes the date. Interrupted by jerks. Sometimes Smellerbee just makes herself a target. I guess I can sympathesize._

_Longshot seems to take too long to be her hero, but he isn't the confrontational type. I'm trying to get motivated to write a conclusion to their "date". Motivate me if you want me to write it. Feeling kinda low about it._


	14. The Kiss

_**The Date Part 4. Woot!**_

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"I shouldn't have reacted like that. You don't have to rub it in." Smellerbee said as she walked beside him in the beginnings of the cool, crisp evening.

He wore his quizzative expression. Rub it in? Sometimes she read into things what she wanted to.

"I guess I ruined dinner. I should have just ignored it."

He grabbed her wrist. He was in a habit of doing that. Gentle touching to let her know he was listening. He stared at her hard.

"No." He said finally, making an effort to get it out.

She was a little suprised, but shrugged and continued to hold his touch, his thumb curving around her tiny wrist. "It just really gets to me. This city. They can't even trust their own law enforcements. They're living in denial!"

That wasn't what was getting her down but a tear ran down her face. It had been coming for a while. The whole thing. With Jet. Staying in Ba Sing Se. Feeling low about herself. Feeling ugly and then in turn even more bitter that something so stupid and superficial would bother her in the first place.

She tried to turn away but he took his hand off her wrist and put it on her shoulder, forcing her to look. Continuing his pathetic attempt to show her the truth with his eyes.

She ranted off everything that bothered her over and over in her head. She was just sick of it!

They said when you incur a tragedy there were a number of stages you went through... and the men they just encounted had finally triggered the step of 'anger'.

Misery and denial had past, leaving her little more than a shell that had to put on a brave face while she learnt to sew, and made herself useful fetching things in her pitiful excuse for employment.

She was angry at everything. Even angry at him. But most of all angry at Jet for leaving them. He didn't have to give up. He could have fought on! He could have lived!

Longshot continued to stare at her, while anger bubbled in her tearstained eyes. She tried to ignore his influence the best she could but finally it dropped.

She drooped, the weakness shining through. "What you said before, that Jet would have said I was beautiful... did you mean it?" She asked, trembling a little under his touch.

Longshot nodded. He didn't have to. The answer was staring her in the face. But he opened his mouth again and when no words came... closed it.

She took his hesitation as an opportunity. She bent up and pressed her lips to his. Hoping desperately the feeling of his warmth on hers would help to ease the pain and frustration she felt inside.

She closed her eyes and sunk her lips into his, which he reciprocated tenderly. She wanted Jet to be watching. She pretended he was. She wished he was. As if this would serve him right.

As if herself pressed up against her current best friend would make all the difference in serving him a little payback. For leaving them. And a secondary way to express all this anger and frustration from being so helpless to the world.

It wasn't that it wasn't about Longshot. It was. He deserved his part of the blame too. At least that's what she thought. They all did.

Aang. His stupid bison. Katara. For not trying hard enough to save him. Longshot. For not following Jet when he and Aang ran off. Ponytail. Just because.

But herself more than anything. And that's where all the hurt came from.

She brushed her bottom lip against his almost hungrily. But all he was being was his normal gentle self. Keeping a distance as much as he could. Ignoring all her violent motivations in the kiss, instead turning it into an expression of hope... gently caressing his lips with hers.

And then finally, it got through to her again and at his tenderness she began to let the hurt and anger dissolve and although she kept kissing him... this time it was not with force. Not thinking about Jet and everything that had gone wrong since they arrived in Ba Sing Se, but with emotion. With love that extended further than that of a best friend.

Longshot's eyes were closed and he touched the back of her neck now, his hat tilted a little away from her to not get in the way.

Bashfulness set in when she stopped being angry and realized she was kissing her best friend, her comrade and it had only been two weeks since Jet had been gone.

Her face sported a dab of crimson coloring, and she broke away from Longshot, her eyes finding the ground the second they got a chance too.

"Sorry" she mumbled a little breathily. Although she couldn't look at him, he knew where he stood and he took the girl in his arms, saying silently _'It's going to be OK.'_

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**  
Is this uber fluff-tacular or what?**

I couldn't have written if not for the love. Awww... Thanks guys.


	15. The Kiss Cont

A moment later it was like nothing had happened. They walked back along the street, the back alley ways of Ba Sing Se's lower districts.

Their shoulders brushed briefly as they walked, although this was such a common thing that both of them tended to ignore it. Kissing should have been a happy thing. Smellerbee felt she was turning it into Jet's slow and painful death all over again.

Like something inevitable was hanging between them that neither one could discuss, but knew it couldn't remain forever unspoken.

She hated the way the dress ravelled around her, making it less easy to manouver her legs and she wasn't used to be cautious about the way she moved, she just came a swinging. But this time, it was a good thing to keep her mind off what she was thinking... that she just wanted to kiss him again. That it felt like the most natural thing in the world.

"I'm still hungry" she said, shooting him a little grin to let him know she was feeling better.

She pulled him up to one of the small merchants selling sugar cane again. He dutifully dug out some change. She would herself, if she had anywhere to keep it.

Longshot still tasted her lips on his and was afraid that a bite into the sugar cane again would remove that. Yet he did, looking wistfully out as Smellerbee hunched up her dress, exposing her boney knees and sat on the dusty street corner. Not caring who was about in the dark of the night. He sat beside her and looked at her and the small smudges that she wore on her face from the dust of the street now. Masking itself as an extra coating of war paint on her.

She looked down to the dress. "I was going to have to wash it anyway" she explained.

He let the sweetness roll around in his mouth. His fingers now on the sugar cane stalk, vaguely remembering what it was like to be pressed up against the back of her neck.

She spat out some of the splinters onto the ground and looked at him as a test. He tried to beat it. They bit in and tried again. After several tries, Smellerbee gave up and cried in protest.

"That's really not fair. Your name is Longshot. I really had no chance... plus... you have a bigger mouth" she said with her usual Smellerbee like cheek.

He looked to her suprised.

But she was even more suprised when he threw down the rest of his sugar cane and that mouth of his was on hers again. His lips prodding her for an answer to her cheek.

She surrendered, dropped her own stalk of sugar cane and let him take the lead.

It was always nicer to let him take the lead. That's why they had Jet. Neither of them wanted to lead.

In nothing but the gentle streetlights and the quarter moon, the two freedom fighters quietly explored all the feelings they had before what happened to Jet had slapped them in the face.

If they tried hard enough they could pretend it never happened. But by the time they broke apart they shed a tear because they knew that if Jet WAS watching, they'd be happy to have him see how happy they could be together.

Longshot was right all along. It was going to be OK.

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**I'm going to be offline for a week to try and kick this sad addiction I have to the internet. If you're a fellow Christian, pray for me. If not, much love and I'll be praying for you!**


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